> They are every bit the problem that ICE cars are, it's just that the full environmental costs of the switchover have not been widely-recognized.

I think you’re confusing an environmental catastrophe with devastating consequences for specific people (and animals etc) in a contained location with a completely uncontained environmental catastrophe with devastating consequences for all life on this planet.

Just reducing cars’ impact to “devastating a number of specific contained locales” would be a monumental step forward.